ABSTRACT

The gentry period of Russian culture and literature reached its climax in Alexander sergeyevitch pushkin. The whole of that period was marked not only by a rapid growth of Russian literature, but also by a far-reaching fermentation of ideas. The philosophy of Hegel, Schelling, and Fichte, mixed up with naive Schilleresque idealism, prevailed in the group of young intellectuals. In contrast to Hegel's idea of an abstract humanity, Grigoryev adhered to Schelling's and Herder's theory of nations as living organisms. He demanded from art and culture in general that they should be rooted in the collective national body, and in the soil of one's country. The socialist ideas cherished by Hegel and his group were even responsible for a certain cleavage between the moderate liberals and the radicals in the ranks of the intelligentsia. After the abolition of serfdom the intelligentsia was, strengthened by a number of economically ruined noblemen, now more or less declasses and therefore favoring radical ideas.